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October 08, 2004
GW does Rocky II -- comes back and scores
GW was battered in style points last time out, but a good rest and a forum that allowed him to connect to people in the audience and GW showed what most of us that listen to substance already knew.
Kerry spent most of the time posturing, doing the stump speech, repeating many of the answers from the first debate, talking about all the things he wanted to do (without saying how) and waving the strawman "lynch the rich!" But rarely does he go into values. GW sweeps the floor with Kerry in regards to values.
You gotta love the lines about popularity in Europe. You know that gets under Kerry's skin. Kerry spent much more time ducking and weaving and GW did much more in answering directly each question.
This debate certainly showcased the difference between the unapologetic American and the unabashed World Citizen.
Don't miss Hugh Hewitt's always excellent scorecard.
Praise be Allah, don't miss here and here ... always the Mother of All Roundups.
UPDATE I saw the first and last on TV, heard the middle on radio. TV worked for GW this time, in showing his ease up close and personal with regular folk. He smiles, his eyes twinkle, his jaw gets set. He has very good body language because he is comfortable in his skin. He was much more animated and approached the audience. Now, unless I missed something while I was listening to the radio, it didn't appear that Kerry really moved towards the crowd as much, and while, admittedly he's gotten better in such a forum, he still seems less willing to mix with the unwashed masses.
Startlingly a small but very telling line just came back to me, and when transcripts are up, I'll check out if my memory serves me. When GW stated that if we followed Kerry's advice of "today" (invading Iraq was a mistake, etc) Saddam would still be in power.
Kerry: "Not necessarily so."
I don't find that at all comforting. I also heard Kerry say that Saddam/Iraq was not a threat.
To coin a rhetorical phrase -- What the f**k?
UPDATE And another thought.... how could Kerry look around the room and know none of the folks in the audience made over $200K/year? Can you say "classist"?
I knew you could.
Yes, yet another UPDATE GW finally stuck a knife into Kerry's "people over the $200K mark are FILTHY RICH" meme when pointing out small sub-S businesses. Take a moment and check out this story.
Posted by Darleen at October 8, 2004 07:35 PM
Comments
Pres. Bush did a lot better tonight, but I wish he had spoken more about the coalition of the "bribed an coerced." From everything we have heard the last few days, the "bribed" were actually the UN countries that voted against war in Iraq (France, Russia, China). They were in league with Saddam in the Oil for Food program and agreed to veto any military action involving the US and Iraq in return for billions in kickbacks. Sure do wish he had mentioned that!
Posted by: SFC Thomas at October 8, 2004 08:16 PM
SFC Thomas
Good to see you again, hope life is treating you well.
What I liked is that rarely did GW repeat any of his first debate answers. And I was glad he discussed, more than once, the Deufler report AND talked about the Oil-4-Food Scam. You're right, it would have been nice to hammer that some more. Indeed, a whole 90 minutes to be easily devoted to just that subject.
Camp Kerry (and his unofficial "527" the Main Stream Media) have been engaging in egregious lying about the report...that is "proves" GW "mislead" about the WMD. It didn't and it DID underline what David Kay said earlier this year, that Saddam was actually MORE dangerous than they thought because he was so poised to ramp up, unhindered, after the sanctions were dropped.
Posted by: Darleen at October 8, 2004 08:25 PM
Come on, Kerry won. Bush was defensive and had that desperate whine in his voice, with the same intonation on every sentence. He was almost berating the audience, like a preacher pleading for money.
If you want to pretend that we invaded Iraq because of the oil for food scandal now, fine.
The only threat was in Saddam's imagination and possible desire, not weapons. Get over it. We saw a real president tonight, and it wasn't the blinking, simple-minded Bush.
Posted by: Binacontenda at October 8, 2004 08:43 PM
By the way, what Kerry meant about "not necessarily so" was that we could have taken down Saddam without this war. Special ops assasination, for example. With no loss of lives, and for a LOT less money.
The phrase "failure of imagination" seems to apply if you think it's Bush's war or nothing. That's called a "false choice." Look it up. Reality is not a black and white cartoon, you know.
Posted by: Binacontenda at October 8, 2004 08:47 PM
Scott
The black ops thing was implausible. We went through this before.
Kerry only a couple of weeks ago said even IF there were no WMD he still would have voted to authorize war. Now he's to "I might have left Saddam in power because he really wasn't a threat and the sanctions were working."
This was GW's. On style, on substance.
Kerry wants to be prom queen of the Euros.
Posted by: Darleen at October 8, 2004 09:35 PM
Black ops implausible? Why? The CIA is the most capable organization of its kind in the world. The KGB were hacks by comparison. We could have taken out Hussein, via smart bomb, poison, lone assassin, working with the Mossad, and so on. If we're so incompetent that we need a full-on war just to get Saddam, that's just embarrassing.
Unless you're a high level agent, I doubt you are able to say what we could or could not do. Even I know enough to say that it's possible. The CIA are not Keystone Kops.
What's disturbing is that I think you know Bush is lying, but you just don't care.
As far as Saddam's situation under Kerry vs. Bush, we can't know what "might have" happened. But it sure as hell could have turned out better. He WAS contained, and he did not have the ability to harm us. He was a "threat" at the time because we thought he had weapons - we thought so because we trusted the President. But in reality, he was only a possible, potential future threat, much less of one than other nations and dictators. You know that, right?
If your argument is "Kerry was wrong for believing the Bush administration," just remember where the responsibility is.
Watch the debate again on CSPAN, and think about what the words mean, not just the emotional vibe.
Getting international cooperation is not just "being popular," despite W.'s simplistic view. It has real consequences. It affects real lives and real money. Being a cowboy doesn't work.
If you care about results, and you care about how good our President is at doing the job, there's no way you could think Bush deserved a second term.
Do you think of the Presidential election in terms of religious belief? Or do you think of it as hiring someone to do a very important job?
Regardless of personal feelings, Bush has not done a good job. What's worse, he doesn't seem to understand that fact. That's dangerous.
Posted by: Binacontenda at October 8, 2004 10:05 PM
Scott
Kerry had the same intelligence GW did.
Name one ONE Western Official or Western intelligence agency that did not NOT think Saddam still possessed WMD post 1991.
Blair did, Chirac did, Putin did, the UN did, Kerry did, Edwards did, CIA did, Brit intel did, and on and on and on.
the US had every legal, ethical and moral obligation to take out Saddam AND HIS SONS as well as the rest of his regime. You realize, of course, that the 1991 war was never over? We've been in a cease-fire where Saddam was to comply with the UN...12 years and 17 resolutions later, he didn't..and he was bribing like crazy the French (who were behind the Niger forgeries) Russians and members of Kofi's own family.
THEY were the "coerced and bribed."
No lies. Billy Jeff set the agenda in 1998 with the regime change in Iraq bill. GW fulfilled it.
The CIA couldn't assasinate Fidel. And Saddam was a hell of a lot more clever.
Saddam was a man who celebrated his seizure of power by hanging Jews around the town square.
Kerry would have left him in power.
Posted by: Darleen at October 8, 2004 10:27 PM
Well, first of all, assassination is not a "codoned" method of dealing with enemies...it's against the Laws of land and warfare (not to say it hasn't happened before....)
Nobody said the Oil-for-Food scandal was the rational for going to war! You are severely reaching with that one....
What DID happen though, was this:
Everyone said we needed a coalition and UN legitimacy. If that had happened, then the war would have been fine and dandy, no? Okay, but the deck was STACKED AGAINST US because of the bribes given to the other big three members, Russia, China, and of course, the French. Not even Kerry could have brought them to the table, so to speak, because of the BILLIONS of dollars in bribes that were at stake! The other countries didn't condone our actions because war with Iraq was wrong, it was because of the BRIBES!!!! So we were wrong to go to war because bribed nations didn't want to lose their cash cow? GEEEZ!! Unilateral action was the only recourse since Saddam had bought those THREE vetoes!!!! OMG HOW can you be SOOO niave??
Posted by: SFC Thomas at October 9, 2004 10:06 AM
oops, "condoned", not "codoned". Sorry 'bout that. Hate spelling errors...
Yes, I agree Saddam was a future, potential threat... and so you would LET him become a bigger threat later on, and more innocent lives could be lost? I would rather take him out now, before anything else could happen. Sure, we have lost more than a 1000 soldiers' lives so far, but that is way better than the untold civilian lives that could be lost if Saddam had grown as a threat. His proclivities for dealing with terrorists are well known. Even if he had never attacked the US on his own, consider this... Is there truly a difference in Saddam personally attacking us, or if he supplied the weapons to terrorists that kill us? In your way of thinking, a person is not guilty of murder if he gives a person a gun with the explicit reason to kill someone. If a person gives a person a gun and says, "Go kill this person", is that person also guilty of murder? Of course, and the same would go for Saddam.
Posted by: SFC Thomas at October 9, 2004 10:16 AM
Oh, and btw, IT IS EVIDENT the other countries wanted sanctions and inspections to go on longer because that just meant more BRIBE money in their pockets. Okay Darleen, I'm done....
Posted by: SFC Thomas at October 9, 2004 10:19 AM
SFC Thomas
Anytime! All excellent points.
Jhimmi Carter, IIRC, was the one that signed either a bill or a directive that took targeted assassinations off the table. In addition, assassinating Saddam, like assassinating Osama, doesn't solve the problem. Especially in Saddam's case where he had groomed his two sons to take over. They even exceeded dear old dad in ruthless sadism and corruption. Uday was notorious for considering the female half of Iraq's population his own personal hunting ground.
According to Deufler's own testimony, "sanctions were in freefall."
Posted by: Darleen at October 9, 2004 11:12 AM